The Journal of the Mad Indian Caveman

Monthly Archives: February 2006

I’m sure it’s just a certain paranoia, but I often feel that I have to defend myself over wanting to have the dialogs in the first place, and then do it all over again when it comes to discussing K. Surely it’s not too much to ask that we keep his works at least peripherally around during the dialogs, or am I just blowing up something that’s really a very minor issue?

And frankly, yes, I am rather irritated when people say “You won’t be offended if I walk out, then?” and then just refuse to show up. I might be indoctrinated and blind, but why the hell is that license to tolerate every other madness? It’s a bloody K school, or had you not noticed?

And it always seems that we end up discussing why I chose that particular video, or text piece, rather than discussing the video itself. I have no objection to being put on the spot, but I think it’s a side discussion, that.On the other hand, I’m not sure what we would discuss anyway, so it’s rather a moot point.

Gah. I’m just ranting, as usual. I know nothing will come of it, and I’m not sure why I bother.

Then of course there was the whole swimming debacle, which left me feeling distinctly like a second-class citizen when it comes to activities; it’s not like we didn’t have a full vehicle, and the “oh but it’s exclusive” argument is just not going to float (beg pardon, not intentional). Every time we go anywhere there’s the possibility that someone can’t come because of work, or classes, or something else; are we going to cancel all those trips, too?

Not a good day, but it did snow all afternoon, looks to continue all night; hopefully we’ll get some settling so I can do a little photography in the morning.

Oh yeah, and I was told “Well, you certainly aren’t hurrying, are you?” about my education, which is true, but dammit, I’ve done one helluva lot else. I agree it’s time to get on with it, but I refuse to see the headlong urgency with which most people smash their way through things. Life is to be lived, not suffered through, and there’s a wealth of richness and diversity to discover; none of which I would have done if I had torn my painful way through a conventional education, so thank you very much, I quite like it this way.

Today I had a robin, several sparrows, a nuthatch, and (since all of you have dirty minds) several representatives of various species of the genus Parus. :p

Mr. Rattus norvegicus, whom I have christened Julian MacNamara, continues to be a thorn in my flesh, and I regret to say I see no alternative but to oust him using the infamous shock-and-awe tactic so widely employed by the military across the world.

… kick your little ratty ass from here to Pluto and back, you miserable little monster? Stop bloody scrabbling around between the ceiling joists at night and making sleep inpossible! You have been warned; I nearly put a dent in the roof last night, remember? It’ll be a trap after this, and then I’m afraid if that doesn’t work it’ll be poision. Sorry, but there it is.

In other news, K called and offered to send me a masala dosa, and now I’m craving. Death, where is thy sting? I absolutely refuse to eat cold cereal for breakfast today. Will go on quest for alternative options. So there!

RAW processing, noise reduction, multithreaded file format conversion; everything I need, everything I want at the moment to process RAW files. Now all I need is about a gigabyte of memory, and I’ll be set. That’s a gigabyte of CF cards as well as a gigabyte of memory, mind you.

Oh well. A man can dream, can’t he? And if the dream can also hold a Canon 400mm 5.6L, then it’s a good dream. Made even better by a 1.4x extender; 896mm effective FoV…. *drool, drool*.

Jaithirtha’s First Law of Outdoor Macro Photography states that the wind velocity during an outdoor macro shoot is directly proportional to remaining time before the shutter is pressed.

It’s astonishing how often the subjects are still and beautiful against a clear background when you first see them, only to be apparently posessed by an evil spirit which they insist on fighting off the moment you frame them in the viewfinder. DoF is already small enough in macro mode without having your subject flailing wildly around in all directions. In spite of this trouble, I’ve managed to take a few decent shots. Will link as and when I have time to process them properly.

I put up a bird feeder a few days ago, and I’ve found that gossip travels very fast in the avian world; I already have three pairs of blue tits, a few great tits, a coal tit, goldfinches, robins and blackbirds all clamouring for a go at the feeder. They’re emptying a feeder in a day, the little fiends. And one of them seems to have got so excited yesterday that the entire feeder’s been knocked over and is lying on the ground; the moment the rain stops I’ll have to go refill it.

Speaking of rain, I take all that stuff about English rain being soft and drippy and horribly persistent; I drove yesterday through a storm worthy of the Kerala monsoon. Absolute deluges; I had the wipers on high and still they weren’t enough to clear the windscreen. Insanity.

…the British fascination with drinking as a hobby in and of itself. I doubt if any other country in the world would have invented the so-called game of pub golf, where you play 9 or 18 holes (visit said number of pubs) and have a drink in each, getting points for the alcohol content of the drink, while avoiding passing out or throwing up.

In a word, wtf?

Alcohol in moderation (strict moderation) on an occassional basis I can sympathise with, but this whole culture of “come across and let’s get smashed” entirely defeats me. No wonder binge-drinking is such a problem.